After the Funeral
by TheChasm
Summary: In the middle of the night, the Weasley siblings share war stories, tears and memories. One-shot.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.**

**A/N: This might just be the saddest thing I've ever written, including the last one, where I killed off every single Weasley sibling... sorry? It's been a long time in the writing, so I'd really like it if you let me know what you thought!**

**A brief note on middle names:**

**Bill's, Percy's, Ron's and Ginny's middle names are canon. I gave Charlie the middle name Thomas, which in my headcanon is the name of Arthur Weasley's second brother, with his older brother being called Bilius. ("Uncle Bilius" is canon, but we don't know which side of the family he came from; however, I think he's more likely to be Arthur's brother than Molly's, since he didn't die along with Fabian and Gideon. We also know Arthur had two brothers, so I took the liberty of naming the second one.) Fred's middle name is Gideon and George's is Fabian – again, not canon, but hopefully reasonable. **

**Warning: mentions of sexual assault and suicidal ideation **

**After the Funeral**

Charlie woke to find his mouth was intolerably dry and his tongue felt like sandpaper. He opened his eyes to see the room was still pitch-black and groaned. Tired as he was, he would have to get up for a drink of water.

He slid on his warm woollen bedroom slippers and padded down the Burrow's stairs to the kitchen. Once he had drunk his fill, though, he was coming properly awake – too accustomed to years of getting up before dawn to tend to the hatchlings – and he knew he wouldn't be able to fall asleep again. But he needed to sleep, he had to, because he'd been up all last night and he was exhausted and he just wanted to forget.

He picked up the bottle of Firewhisky on the kitchen table, which seemed to be there permanently these days, and poured himself a generous shot. He was just about to down it when he noticed the light coming from the sitting room. He wasn't the only one awake at this unearthly hour.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked, walking in.

"Moon's full," Bill grunted from the couch.

In the dim light of his brother's wand, Charlie could see that Bill's scarred face was pale and sweaty, and his fists were clenched around the thin blanket covering him.

"Tonight?" he said. "Why didn't Mum remember?"

Bill raised his eyebrows, though the effort made him wince. "You think Mum's in a state to remember anything?"

That was fair enough, but still. "You should have said something, then," he said. "We could have waited until tomorrow."

"Yeah," Bill said, his voice as bitter as Charlie had ever heard it. "Because the funeral would've been so much easier tomorrow." Charlie said nothing, and he sighed. "I've got bigger problems than the moon right now, Charlie."

"Where's Fleur?" Charlie asked. He didn't want to talk about their problems, didn't want to remember that he'd buried his little brother not twelve hours ago. "Thought she usually sat up with you."

"I sent her to bed," said Bill. "I didn't want... I just needed to think." He gasped and stiffened suddenly, mouth contorting with pain, before relaxing again.

There was a commotion on the stairs. Someone was speaking very quickly and quietly, murmuring encouragements. "There, have some water... it's alright, just breathe, you're fine..." A moment later, Percy came into the sitting room with his arm around Ginny, who was very pale. She was holding an empty water glass, but when she saw Charlie's Firewhisky she plucked the bottle smoothly from his grasp, poured a generous measure and gulped it down.

Percy frowned. "Ginny, that's not..."

"Oh, like I care," Ginny said sharply. She sank to her knees in front of the dying fire and hid her head in her hands, letting her long red hair flop forward to cover her face. Her shoulders were shaking, but she wasn't crying.

"What happened?" Bill asked Percy.

Percy shrugged uncomfortably. "I heard her scream – looks like she was having a nightmare."

"About the battle?" Charlie asked Ginny gently. Merlin knew, he'd relived the moment enough times. "_Family all present and accounted for?" _he'd called to Bill as they duelled side by side in the Great Hall, and Bill just hadn't answered.

She shook her head without looking up. "'Bout the Carrows," she mumbled.

Her three older brothers looked around at each other, not sure what to say. Charlie didn't know much about Ginny's past year at Hogwarts. He'd been in Romania for most of it, she had been withdrawn and silent during his brief visit on New Year's Day, and after the battle... well, there hadn't been many opportunities for cosy chats. But now, looking at how Ginny was shuddering, he wondered exactly what had befallen her.

The silence, broken only by Bill's harsh breathing, was just starting to get awkward when Charlie heard a light footstep on the stairs and George came in. He was barefoot, and in his faded old pyjamas, which had been washed so many times they'd been bleached to near white, with his tousled hair and pallor and the dead man's eyes wide and dark in his face, he looked like a ghost. The effect was grotesque and disturbing and Charlie quickly turned his face away.

"Hey," Bill said, very gently. "Bad dreams?"

George shook his head. "Wasn't... sleeping."

Something had happened to his voice in the past few hours. It was hesitant, filled with pauses, as though every word cost him effort he could not afford to expend. He had managed his speech at the ceremony just fine, but he was going fast downhill now. Charlie wanted to comfort him. He did. But looking at him was haunting, seeing Fred's face so pale and unsmiling. Fred had never looked like that.

"Why not?" asked Bill, as George sank into an armchair. George didn't respond.

Ginny held out her glass to Charlie, and he refilled it obligingly. His own drink was already gone, too, but he didn't feel any of the welcome numbness yet. Everything was too sharp and clear.

"George, you need to sleep," Bill tried again. "You were up all of last night—"

"We – all were," George pointed out.

"'S different. You're not well," Bill started to say, before unfortunately negating his point with a hiss of pain. Ginny reached over and squeezed his hand.

George hadn't wanted to leave the body. He hadn't said anything, but when their mother had tried to persuade him to go up to bed he'd swallowed hard and just shaken his head, sitting on the hard wooden floor beside the open coffin. So his siblings had all stayed, too, because how could they leave him alone?

It had been all seven of them together in a room for the last time ever.

These dark musings were brought to an end by, once again, the sound of footsteps on the stairs, this time hurried and loud. Ron burst into the room with his wand already drawn, half-dressed and wild-eyed.

"What's going on?" Percy yelped.

Ron looked frantically around before pointing a shaking finger at Ginny. "Went to check on Hermione," he gasped. "And you weren't in your room – heard voices down here – thought—"

Charlie went cold as he realised what Ron had feared, but Ginny looked back at him very steadily. "You don't need to worry about any of that now," she said evenly. "It's over. You're safe."

Colour was coming back into Ron's face. "Right," he panted. "Right..." He looked around at them all assembled in the sitting room as he dropped down on the rug. "What are we all doing up?"

"Drinking," said Charlie, and Ginny raised her glass in sardonic agreement.

"Moon," said Bill. Ron winced sympathetically.

"Got woken up by this one," Percy said, nodding his chin to Ginny, and she flushed scarlet.

George didn't say anything. He was staring out the window into the garden, looking utterly unaware of the conversation. Utterly unaware of the world, in fact.

"Alright, George?" Bill asked, drawing his attention again. Why did he keep trying?

George looked at him with those wide brown eyes and shook his head. "He's dead," he said, and then turned back to the window.

There wasn't really anything they could say to that.

Bill moaned, pressing his hand to a scar on his cheek. "Is it very bad?" Percy said anxiously. Of course, he'd never seen Bill through a full moon before.

"Scars feel like they're on fire," Bill said, drawing a shallow breath. "It's bearable."

Charlie snorted without humour.

"I'm sorry," Percy said, staring at the carpet. "I'm sorry I left."

"That's the twelfth time you've apologised, Percy," said Ron, almost angrily. "I don't know if you expect us to change our minds or something, but just in case this is news _we've already forgiven you_."

"I'm apologising because once isn't enough!" Percy said with surprising vehemence. "You don't understand – you've never—"

Ron laughed harshly. "Haven't I?" he said, and the room suddenly went very quiet. Bill, who had screwed his eyes shut against a wave of pain, opened them wide.

"I walked out on them," Ron said, looking fixedly at the fire. "Harry and Hermione. Got fed up with what we were doing and just left them to it. And I'm not proud of it and it was stupid and weak but that's what I did. So don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about."

Silence for a while longer.

"Did they forgive you?" Percy asked tremulously. "When you went back?"

Ron nodded. "Harry straight away. Hermione took some time, but what the hell – I deserved it. I know why they forgave me now, though." He looked directly at Percy, blue eyes bright with unshed tears. "That's what family means."

Percy exhaled a shuddering breath and said nothing.

"Where did you go?" Charlie asked. "When you left?"

"He came to me," Bill said from the couch.

"Bill didn't ask questions," Ron mumbled, looking profoundly ashamed of himself.

Ginny gasped as if an epiphany had just struck her. "_That's _why you didn't come over for Christmas!" she said to Bill.

Bill nodded. "I wish I had, now," he said. "Since..."

Since it had been Fred's last Christmas, and he'd missed it, they'd all missed it except for George and Ginny. Charlie cursed himself. His brothers all looked to be doing the same – except for George, who was still silent.

"When I got home," Percy said, voice trembling badly, "and all my Christmas jumpers were waiting on my bed for me..."

"You shouldn't have sent them back," Ginny said. Her voice was hard, but her eyes were soft. "Mum was really upset."

"I was so stupid," Percy whispered.

Ginny nodded matter-of-factly. "You were," she said. "But creaming you with parsnips was fun."

Percy laughed, very shakily.

"Perce," Charlie said, and his brother looked over at him. Charlie took a deep breath. "Will you tell us... how it happened?"

Maybe he was the only one who didn't know. He'd arrived there late, after all. But George raised his head, suddenly looking interested, and Ginny said, "Yes, I think it's time you told us."

"You know what happened," Ron mumbled. "The wall blew up, and—"

"No more half-truths, Ron," she said. "You promised. We want to know... what he was doing, and who was there, and what he – what he said – before— We deserve to know that."

Charlie didn't know what that meant, and by the look on Bill's face neither did he, but he let the comment pass.

"He found me dealing with three of them at once," Percy said, his voice so quiet it barely could be heard over the crackling of the fire. "I don't know what I'd have done if he hadn't – but he shouldn't even have _been _there, I thought he was with you—" He cast an anguished look at George.

"We – split up," George said, staring at his knees. "We both... both... both knew the – passageways – so well – wasn't... efficient. To go – together." Listening to him was agony, his bright, witty brother struggling to form every word, unable to string his thoughts coherently together.

"Should've... known," George continued, hardly audible now. His hand brushed the side of his head, where his ear should have been. "Should've... stayed. With him."

"You couldn't have known," Ginny whispered, and George looked up at her, his eyes suddenly bright with such wild, desperate grief that Charlie felt like he'd been slapped. But the moment passed and the dullness came back again; George slumped back in his chair as though the speech had used up every last reserve he had.

"Anyway," Percy said miserably, "he Stunned one of them and started duelling the other one, and I was still going, but they pushed us back a bit – and then—"

"And that's when we found you," Ron said, taking up the story, "me and Harry and Hermione, we'd been doing – something. But we Stunned one of them and you jinxed the other one – no, Transfigured, what did you turn him into again?"

"A sea urchin," Percy supplied, and Ron managed a brief exhausted half-smile. "And then," Percy continued, "his hood fell back and I saw it was Thicknesse, and I said – I said—" At this point he started to cry in earnest.

"'Hello, Minister,'" Ron quoted. "'Did I mention I'm resigning?' And he laughed." He looked at George, who was watching him with blank dead eyes. "He laughed," Ron repeated, almost pleadingly.

"And then," Percy choked, "and then he said, "'You're joking, Perce!'"

It was a strange and curious thing, hearing Fred's last words. Almost as if Fred lived again, just for that fleeting moment, as bright and vivid and alive as he'd been nine short days ago.

"'You actually are joking, Perce,'" Ron said, beginning to cry himself. "'I haven't heard you joke since you were—'"

"That's when it exploded," Percy said hollowly. Ginny was crying too now, but Charlie felt too wrung-out with misery to weep. Was that possible, being too sad to cry?

"Eleven," George said softly. Everyone turned to look at him in surprise. "Since you were eleven."

Percy blinked. "That's what he was going to say?" And when George nodded, "Thank you. Thank you for telling me."

"Yeah... well," said George. "Not – going to... finish. Any more of his – sentences... am I?" And suddenly, Charlie thought he understood why his brother was having such trouble communicating verbally: he'd never had to before.

Percy scrubbed his hand over his face. "It's my fault," he said wretchedly. "I distracted him – if I hadn't – it's all my fault."

"It isn't your fault, Perce," Ron said. He didn't seem to have the energy for a stronger argument.

"You made him laugh," Charlie agreed. "I think he'd have wanted to... to die laughing."

"He didn't," said George, "want to die." That shut everyone up for a moment.

Percy turned his tear-glazed face to George. "It was my fault," he said again, hoarsely. "How – how are you not angry with me?"

"Fred wasn't," George said, leaning back in his chair to stare at the ceiling. "How can... I be?"

Again, no one spoke. They'd been avoiding Fred's name throughout the conversation, but trust George not to pay attention to the rules.

Bill shifted restlessly and groaned. He was panting again, and Charlie abandoned his chair to kneel on the floor in front of his brother, gripping his shoulders. "Just breathe through it, Bill," he said bracingly. "Come on, just keep breathing. It'll all be over soon."

"It won't," he heard Ginny whisper behind him.

At last Bill seemed able to focus his eyes again. "'M fine," he gasped, pushing Charlie away. "'M okay."

"Seems worse than usual this month," Charlie said, but he took his chair again obediently.

Bill shrugged. He looked like he was trying to sit up, but he was too weak to manage it. "Emotional agitation," he said. "Remus told me it always makes it worse."

Of course Remus Lupin was dead now, and Charlie was supposed to feel sad about that, wasn't he? He was supposed to mourn for Tonks, who'd been one of his best friends in school, who'd sat companionably next to him at Order meetings and gleefully hexed him on his little sister's behalf. And he did feel sad, he _did. _But it was hard to care about anything much in a world without Fred.

"Gin?" Percy said, after a while. "Will you... will you tell us about what happened at Hogwarts? If you want to."

"I don't," Ginny said. That was new, wasn't it, that hard edge to his baby sister's voice, as though nothing she saw could surprise her anymore? Or had it been there for a long time, and he'd just never noticed it? "But you should know. What it was like."

"You don't have to say it," Ron said. "Neville told us... you don't have to go through it all again."

Ginny shook her head. Her eyes were so fierce. "You need to know," she said. "What kind of people we were dealing with."

"We do know," Charlie said, gesturing around the room in a way that was meant to encompass Bill lying weak and pallid on the sofa and the hole in the side of George's head and the white scars on Ron's forearms and the gaping absence as tangible as any of the six breathing people in the room.

"You know about murderers," Ginny countered. "You don't know about – there are other kinds of evil. Sadists. Torturers. Rapists."

Five pairs of eyes widened at that last word, and ten hands clenched. "Did they ever—?" Percy began, his voice low and furious.

"He threatened to," Ginny said. She shuffled backwards until she'd reached George's armchair, leaning back against his calves and letting her head rest against his knees. He put his hand on the top of her head, like an anchor. "Carrow, I mean. He used to – say things... made us – made us take our robes off in detention... leered at us..."

Charlie could taste bile. For a moment his vision actually went white with sheer rage. He almost missed Bill growling, "If that bastard ever laid a finger on you..."

Ginny laughed. It was a harsh, hysterical sound, more terrifying than any scream. "He tortured me!" she said, and now she was suddenly on her feet, pacing around the room, hair flying and hands gesticulating ceaselessly. "They both did! They chained us up in the dungeons and let the Slytherin sixth- and seventh-years practise their curses on us! But no, he never raped me, so I must be all right, mustn't I?" She'd gone white again, her lips thin and her eyes very bright. "But that was – it was – we knew what we'd signed up for. But then they s-s-started going for the children." She covered her face with her hands and spoke through her fingers. "They used to chain up the first-years. Beat them, sometimes, or just torture them – nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned Cruciatus, why be creative? Or starve them. We used to try to bargain – I'll take an extra two nights' detention if you let the kid go, and of course they liked that, they were only doing it to try to get to us anyway..." She stopped, took a deep breath and looked around at her horrified brothers. "I'm not of age," she said. "I've never been in the Order. But I fought this war just as hard as any of you." Her chest was heaving.

"Ginny..." George breathed, and as if that was all it took Ginny flung herself at him, curling up in his lap like a toddler, burying her face in his chest. George stroked her hair, but he didn't say anything. Charlie wasn't sure he could.

"Ginny, I – I don't know what to say," Percy stammered.

Ginny's voice came muffled through George's shirt. "You don't need to say anything."

"I should've been there," Ron murmured. "I'm sorry."

"If you hadn't gone off playing hero," Ginny said wearily, "where would we be now?"

"Where _are _we now?" Ron asked bitterly. "'Cause this isn't how I thought victory would look."

They all fell silent again.

With an obvious effort, Ginny sat up in George's lap and turned to face the rest of the room, though she made no move to pull away from him. For his part, George had an arm curled around her, but it was impossible to say who was holding whom.

Ginny spoke with the air of someone deliberately putting a difficult conversation behind her. "What," she asked, "was the last thing he said to you?"

So the topic she'd introduced wasn't any easier, either.

"'Good luck,'" said Bill. He shuddered – Charlie couldn't tell if it was with pain or grief. "He... he smiled at me."

Definitely grief.

"I told you already," Percy said dully.

"What about you, Gin?" Charlie asked.

"'Take care,'" she recited. "'I'll see you soon.'" Tears were sparkling in her eyes but she did not let them fall. "Ron?"

Ron was crying openly. "I don't remember," he said. "I just can't remember. I don't think I said anything to him at – at the end – and I dunno if he s-spoke to me in the Room of Requirement and I just don't remember."

"That's okay," Ginny whispered. "You don't have to remember." Ron didn't seem to believe her.

"Charlie?" asked Percy.

He hid his face in his hands. He remembered Fred's last words to him perfectly well, and they weren't laden with irony or tragedy: just an ordinary, cheerful phrase, and yet they spoke so much more about Charlie than they did about his brother. "'Happy New Year,'" he said through his fingers.

Four months ago. Four months during which Fred had been alive and Charlie hadn't been there because he'd never realised how precious those days would be, and for a moment he almost _envied _George, envied him the years of memories that Charlie had missed out on, because George had never, ever missed a single day of Fred's too-short life and it wasn't fair.

Ginny twisted in her perch to look up expectantly at George. He hesitated for a moment before saying, "'I love you too.'"

"That's good," Ginny murmured. "It's what he should have said to you."

"He shouldn't... have had to – say it."

Charlie laughed because the alternative was crying. "Look at us. H-he would be laughing, if he could see us now."

"No," Ginny said soberly. "I don't think he would."

"What do you think he'd say, then?" said Bill, addressing his question to Ginny because George was looking dazed again. On a whim, Charlie glanced at his mother's clock, illuminated in the moonlight. Eight hands – his own, his parents', Bill's, Fleur's, Percy's, Ron's and Ginny's – all pointed at _Home. _Fred's hand had fallen off and George's hadn't moved off _Lost _the entire time they'd been back here, and Charlie wasn't sure which sight was more heartbreaking. Because, watching George so still and unresponsive, it was beginning to dawn on him that he hadn't lost one brother. He'd lost two.

"I think," Ginny said, drawing him back into the conversation, "for all of us"—she gestured around at all the brothers she wasn't sitting on—"he'd just have one thing to say."

"What's that, then?" said Percy.

Ginny looked up at George, reaching a small hand up to rest against his cheek. He was staring out the window and didn't seem to feel her touch. "Take care of George," she whispered. "That's what he'd tell us."

Charlie waited for his independent little brother to protest that he didn't need taking care of, but George just looked at Ginny with wide dark eyes and said nothing.

"As for you," Ginny said very quietly, "you're the only one who knows what he'd say to you."

A shiver crossed George's face. "I don't... know," he said. "Don't... know – anything."

"That's okay," Ron said softly. "You'll remember."

Bill screwed up his face at another wave of pain, but when he spoke his voice was calm and in control. "Sev–Six Questions," he said. "Go."

Seven Questions was a game they'd used to play around the dinner table. Everyone had to answer one question posed to them by someone else, and they had to do it truthfully. Charlie didn't think a single one of his siblings had ever participated without theatrical groans before, but then it had always been their parents proposing a round before, and the questions had always been things like _What did you learn today? _or _What's your favourite animal?_

"Percy," said Bill. "In 'ninety-five, when Dad was hurt... I wrote you to say you had to come to the hospital, immediately, because that could've been it for him. Why didn't you come?"

"Because I was a prat," Percy said miserably. "Because I thought... I thought it might've been a joke or a trick or something, so you could all start going off on me again. I was wrong. I was so stupid." He looked around at them all with anguished eyes. "And then when I heard Fudge talking about it the next morning, and I realised it was real and I was ready to come straight away when you sent the second note..."

"_Out of danger. Don't bother coming,_" Bill said, pressing his hand to a scar just below his eyes. "You mean you were really thinking of coming? You'd've come if I hadn't written that?"

"In an instant!" Percy said. "You have to believe me, I – I never stopped thinking about you, all of you, and then there was so much in the news – Ron in the battle at the Ministry and then you with Greyback and I wanted to come back so much but I was just too afraid." He looked at George. "And then there was that time in Diagon Alley when I saw you two in the shop – Merlin, you can't understand how much I wanted to come and talk to you, and if only I had I could've – could've – b-but then I saw your ear and it was such a shock and I was just so, so stupid!"

"I... remember that," George said slowly. "Knew – you'd... come back... to us." He didn't look able to smile, but his voice was gentle.

"I didn't," Percy said, pressing his lips tightly together as if to stop the sobs breaking out again.

"Ron?" Charlie said. "What were you doing off with Harry and Hermione this year?"

"I can't tell you that," he said at once. At their raised eyebrows, "I want to, but that's Harry's story to tell. He'll explain it all to you soon, I promise."

"I have one for you, Ron," Bill said. His smile looked like a wince, but it was still there. "You and Hermione? What's changed?"

Ron turned as red as his hair and rubbed his neck bashfully. "We're together," he admitted. "At least I think we are." He was almost smiling, too.

"About time," Charlie said. "We've been betting on you two since you were in third year."

"You bet on us?!"

"Yeah," Percy said. His voice was lighter too now. "I had a Galleon on the summer of your sixth year."

"Pay up," Bill said. "I told you he wouldn't manage that."

"You should've seen him with Lavender last year," Ginny said teasingly. "Pathetic."

"Yeah, well—"

"I had six Sickles on just before you left school," Charlie said. "Guess I win, then."

"Well," Bill hedged, "technically, he left school last year..."

"Aren't you going back?" Percy asked Ron, looking shocked.

Ron shuddered visibly. "No. Heard there were plans to fast-track people who missed their last year into the DMLE if they want... but even if they don't I am _never_ going back there."

Charlie didn't really understand this. Hogwarts was a wonderful place, a home-away-from-home for all of them, wasn't it? But Ginny was nodding. "I know what you mean."

"Anyway," Charlie said to Bill, "stop trying to wriggle your way out of it, you snake. I won the bet."

"Uh-uh," said Ginny. "Not yet. I've got five Galleons on them getting married, you'll have to wait and see."

Ron spluttered, and for a moment it felt just like the old days, except not really at all.

"So, what about you, Gin?" Charlie asked. "Do we need to be having words with a Mr H. Potter?"

Ginny's mouth twisted and no, it was nothing like the old days at all. "Fat chance," she said. "I'm not speaking to him until he apologises."

"Ginny, we didn't have time to tell anyone before we left—" Ron began, but she cut him off, waving her hand dismissively.

"Not that. Merlin knows, I understand about that. But the way he acted during the battle – not sticking up for me when I wanted to fight – well, screw him." She hit the side of the armchair hard with an open hand. "I don't need to be protected."

"We all try to protect you, Ginny," Bill said.

"And you shouldn't! Haven't I seen just as much as you have? More, even? I've tried time and again to prove to you – prove to him that I'm his equal and he still won't see it and I'm bloody sick and tired of it."

"He just wants you to be safe," Ron protested. "I did, too."

"Well, guess what? I wasn't safe," she said. "I haven't been safe since Lucius bloody Malfoy slipped a cursed diary into my cauldron when I was eleven, but I'm sick of playing the victim all the time. I'm glad I fought. I would do it again in an instant." She exhaled and all the coiled anger seemed to leave her frame as she tilted her head back to look at George. "Fred understood."

"Yes," he said quietly. "He did."

Ron sighed. "I'm sorry, Gin."

"I know," said Ginny. "And I'm not angry with you. But Harry... Harry needs to have a good long think about who I am before he comes anywhere near me."

She was right, Charlie realised. She didn't need to be protected, because she was perfectly capable of protecting herself.

"Charlie?" Percy said, breaking the silence. "Have you been in Romania this whole time, then?"

Charlie nodded. "I... I was working for the Order abroad," he mumbled. "Foreign recruitment." And it was nothing to be ashamed of, except he knew that wasn't the real reason why he'd stayed away: he'd loved his life of adventure too much to ditch it, and it was all so stupid now, because why hadn't he done what Bill had done, just forgotten about the bloody job and come home so that he could be there for them?

He didn't say any of this, but maybe Percy heard it anyway, because he didn't press further.

"Bill," Ron said. "Why didn't you tell them all what I did? When I came to stay with you?"

Bill choked back another pained gasp before answering. "That wasn't what you needed," he said. "You needed space and time, not being blamed for what you did. And I knew you'd choose to go back."

"I didn't," said Ron, and he and Percy looked at each other with true understanding for once.

"Your turn, George," Bill said. George turned those awful disarming eyes – Fred's eyes, except Fred had never once looked so desolate – towards him and raised one eyebrow. His grip around Ginny's waist tightened.

Bill cut straight to the heart of the matter as usual. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

"Can't," George said, his voice a little muffled by the top of Ginny's head. She shifted so that she could hug his neck as he spoke.

"Why not?" Bill asked patiently. "Nightmares? Because we have Dreamless Sleep Potion in the kitchen – in fact, I'm going to give you some too, Ginny."

Ginny nodded. She never complained when Bill fussed over her, for some reason.

"Not... nightmares," George said. "Or not – just that."

"What is it, then?" Bill asked. "Whatever it is, you can tell us."

George's voice was so heavy. "Never... slept alone – before."

"One of us can—"

"It's not the same!" With the sudden fluency came a burst of energy; George pushed Ginny carefully to her feet and then jerked to his own, starting to pace in tense, tight circles around the room and talking all the while. "It wouldn't be the same, and anyway, it's not just that. B-because if I go to sleep I'll forget for a few hours and then I'll wake up and I'll have to remember again and I can't do that. I _can't_. And I'll open my eyes and he won't be there, and he won't – he won't ever be there again, and—" He swayed, looking alarmingly fragile.

Instantly Percy was beside him. "George," he said hoarsely, wrapping his arms around him, and George leaned into the embrace as if they could melt into each other if only they held on tight enough, as if there shouldn't be another brother in between them.

Then George disentangled himself, facing the rest of them again. The eyes that had been so soft and bewildered now fairly blazed, and he looked so much like Fred and yet nothing like Fred at all. "But it's not just that," he said. "Because—" He cut himself off abruptly.

"Because?" Ron prompted, his voice low and soothing.

"He wouldn't want me to say," George mumbled, staring at the floor now. He folded like a collapsible table, all awkward limbs and graceless elbows that still had something of the adolescent about them (because Merlin, he was so _young_) and sat down hard on the rug beside Ron.

Ginny reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "If you want to tell us," she said, "he wouldn't mind. But it's fine if you don't, too."

George shuddered, and then spoke. "Fred was afraid," he said, not meeting any of their eyes. "After..." His hand twitched impotently near the hole where his ear should have been. "He – he used to have nightmares, horrible ones. Some nights he didn't want to go to sleep at all, but even when he did most nights he'd wake up s-screaming."

Charlie didn't want to listen any more. He didn't want to think of his cheerful, fearless little brother reduced to a sleepless wreck – not _Fred, _who'd never depended on anyone a single day in his shining, too-short life. More than that, he didn't like to think that maybe the picture he'd had of Fred was wrong. Maybe he'd never really known his brother at all, and now he never would.

"He thought," George continued, his voice so steady but so close to splintering, "he thought I woke up when he screamed, but sometimes I'd still be awake anyway. I used to listen to his breathing. So I could tell he was sleeping properly before I did. But now..."

Now Fred wasn't breathing.

"George," Charlie said, more unkindly than he meant to, "he's _dead. _You don't need to wait for him to fall asleep."

"_I know he's dead!" _There it was again, that flash of anguish so raw and sharp that it knocked the breath out of Charlie's lungs, before George's features went numb again. Only it didn't look like much more than a mask now. "I know he's dead," George repeated, more calmly. "But it's – not just that."

"Then what else, George?" Bill asked, and Charlie didn't understand it, how was he so patient, how was he so endlessly gentle, how could he bear to look at Fred's face again and again and again?

George looked up at their eldest brother, eyes nearly brimming over, but not quite. "I was there, when Fred woke up. Every time he needed me, I was there." He took a deep breath. "But now – I need him – so much – and he won't be there – and it isn't _fair._"

Bill let out a shuddering sigh and there was no difference, really, between pain and grief. "I know, George," he murmured, reaching out one arm. "C'mere."

George shuffled across the rug to bury his head in Bill's shoulder, and he was so very young – and yet older than Fred ever would be. He would cry, wouldn't he? He had to cry. But he was unnaturally still. After a protracted pause, he whispered without raising his head, "Why isn't he here?" And then again, when nobody answered: "Why isn't he here?"

Over the last few days, The Burrow had experienced its fair share of silences. Charlie had spent countless hours sitting on his childhood bed and staring at the wall, or working in the garden, or trying to fly high enough so that the tight ache in his chest was because of low oxygen levels and not grief. Mealtimes were quiet too, each of them chewing mechanically and lost in their own isolated sorrows. But this was different, somehow. This was six of them (not seven) being silent _together, _listening to the ebb and flow of each other's breathing and not speaking because nothing really needed to be said. Ginny leaned against the wall. Ron and George sat cross-legged on the rug. Bill lay shivering on the couch, and Charlie and Percy stared at each other from their armchairs. The bright, cruel light of the full moon cast strange shadows on all their faces.

It was a long time before anyone next spoke. "So," Ron said, "what next?"

They all turned to stare at him. "What do you mean?" Charlie asked.

"I mean," Ron said, sounding utterly exhausted, "what next? Where do we go from here? The war's over. Now what do we do?"

"You said you were thinking about the DMLE," Bill pointed out.

"Yeah," said Ron, "but what about the rest of you? What are your plans?"

"Well," Ginny said bitterly, "I don't get a choice, do I? Back to school to get my N.E.W.T.s like a good little girl."

"You don't have to go if you don't want to," Charlie said.

"I can just see Mum's reaction to _that,_" Ginny said. "She needs at least one more kid who actually graduates, doesn't she?"

Charlie thought this was a bit harsh, but he didn't push the point.

"I'll stay with the bank, I guess," Bill said. "It's a decent job. Though the goblins aren't the easiest creatures to work with right now."

"Are they ever?" Ron said drily.

"No, but being the brother of the fugitive who recently breached their impenetrable security and broke out on the back of a dragon doesn't really help matters."

"Hey," Ron protested, "I'm not a fugitive any more, actually. I haven't been arrested in ages."

"Technically, you've never been officially arrested by Aurors," Percy said good-naturedly. "Amateur."

Ron stared at him in disbelief for a full ten seconds before snorting. "Perce, that was actually funny."

"He hasn't told a joke since he was eleven," Ginny said with half a smile. "That's a lot of catching up to do."

They all laughed a little at that. Was it wrong? Fred was dead, so how could anything ever be funny again? But if anything could, it would be his last joke – the one he'd died laughing at. The last sentence George would ever finish.

"I'll stay on at the Ministry," Percy said. "At least for the next few months, there's going to be a lot of paperwork to do, it'll be all hands on deck sorting stuff out. After that... well, we'll see."

Charlie stared at him. "You love that job!" So much so that he'd walked out on them for three years, he added silently.

Percy shrugged. "It's just a job. Other stuff's more important. I just wish..." He trailed off.

"Perce," Bill said, "we're all glad you're back, but that doesn't mean you have to give up a job you enjoy."

"I'm not sure I enjoy it much any more," Percy mumbled. "If I ever did. Anyway, I spoke to Kingsley for a little while at the – today. He said he didn't think I was ready for work in the Minister's private office, I'm too young. He's probably going to demote me." The Percy of three years ago would have said this angrily, sullenly; the Percy of today might have been taking about the weather for all the emotion in his voice. Clearly, it wasn't just Ron and Ginny who'd done some growing up lately.

"What about you?" Percy asked Charlie. "Back to Romania?"

Charlie shook his head. "Not for a few weeks at least," he said. "I couldn't do that to Mum right now. But over the summer—" He paused. The truth was that he was aching, in many ways, to head back to the reserve. Percy was right; family _was _more important. But there was only so much time Charlie could spend here in this house where grief permeated every wall, listening to his mother cry and knowing that nothing he could do would make it better. And even if Percy's feelings had changed, Charlie still loved his job. The dragons were part of him the way red hair and freckles were. And he would give anything for his brothers and sisters, anything they wanted, but not this. They couldn't be so cruel as to take this away from him, to ask him to stay at home permanently.

George was watching him with eyes that were Fred's eyes except too dark and soft, and a face that was Fred's face except not smiling. Another reason why Charlie couldn't stay.

"Any plans, George?" Ron asked softly.

"It's been nine days," Bill said. "Give him some time."

"He can speak for himself, thanks," George said, quietly and with none of his customary bite. At least the awful hesitancy was gone now, though. "I dunno... I might open the shop at some point. Or sell it."

There was a shocked silence. "Sell it?" Ron said finally. "But – you can't! It was your dream!"

George just shrugged, staring at the floor.

Bill shot Ron a look and reached out a hand that was racked with little tremors to rest on George's shoulder. "Sell it if you want to, George," he said. "No one's going to stop you. Just do what you need to do."

George didn't say anything.

An owl hooted outside the window; maybe Errol, or Pigwidgeon, or Percy's Hermes roosting in The Burrow's orchards once more. An ordinary, innocuous sound: there was no reason for Ron to stiffen and gasp the way he did, nor for his hand to fly straight to his wand once more.

"Sorry," he mumbled, evidently aware that they all had eyes on him. "'M just... tense." His breathing was shallow.

Ginny moved closer to him, letting her calf brush companionably against his side. "It's okay," she said. "It's over now."

"You've been on the run a long time," Percy said quietly. "No wonder you're a bit jumpy."

Ron shot him a glare without any anger behind it. It was too hard to be angry tonight. "I'm not jumpy."

Percy knew how to pick his battles, and he wisely let this one slide.

Bill arched his neck and groaned. His face was going clammy with sweat. Ron jerked upright again, but nobody commented. "Just breathe, William," Charlie said steadily. "It'll be over quicker if you keep breathing."

"Don't – call me – William," Bill panted, which was exactly the response Charlie had been aiming for.

Ginny had meanwhile been following her own train of thought. "D'you ever wonder how Mum and Dad decided on our middle names?" she asked. "I mean, all our first names are just names they like, but we're all named after someone they know for middle names. 'Cept me and Bill, of course."

"That's just because you're first son and first daughter," Percy said. "It's tradition."

"Yes," Ginny said, "but how come you got Ignatius and Charlie got Thomas, instead of the other way around? What made them decide who they'd like to... well, honour first?"

"Well," said Bill, between gasps, "Dad's always been close to Uncle Thomas, so that's why Charlie was named after him. And Great-Uncle Ignatius was Mum's favourite uncle, and he died just before Percy was born."

"What about me?" Ron asked. "Uncle Bilius only died when I was seven. And Dad wasn't _that _close to him."

"He was good fun," Charlie said reminiscently. He'd been fourteen when their father's eccentric eldest brother had died, and while he hadn't known Uncle Bilius that well, he'd always enjoyed his company.

"Oh, Uncle Bilius was drinking a lot back then," Bill said. "They thought it might sober him up, if they named a kid after him. Didn't really work, but he was really fond of you, Ron."

Ron looked as though he didn't know quite what to make of that.

"And then you two got Uncle Fabian and Uncle Gideon, of course," Bill said to George. He paused and then added, "They died just a few weeks before you were born."

"I think about them sometimes," George said in a low voice. He took a deep breath and looked around at them all. "Do any of you?"

"I miss them," Charlie said, surprising himself with his own honesty. "I don't remember them that well, but they were great uncles."

"The best," Bill agreed.

"Do any of you—" George swallowed, and then continued. "Do you ever wonder, which of them died first?"

The rest of them cast each other anguished looks, now that they could see where this was going. But what could they say?

"I can't say I did, George," Bill said, keeping his tone gentle and placating, but it wouldn't do any good.

"I always have," George said. "I asked Mum once. We must've been little, nine or ten. But she didn't know. There wasn't anyone else from the Order there when they died. But one of them must have died first." He closed his eyes for a long moment before looking up again. "And I've always felt – sorry for the other one. Whichever one he was. Because the last few minutes or seconds of his life must have been... awful. Don't you think?" He glanced around for confirmation that none of them were willing to give, as they sat frozen on their seats. "And I think he – he must've been – glad – to die."

"Don't talk like that, George," Bill breathed, reaching out to him again, but George jerked away from the outstretched hand, got to his feet and stumbled over to the window to press his forehead against the cool glass. His face crumpled, and then just as quickly regained its composure.

"But he died, you see," he said very quietly, staring out into the garden. "He died, and no-one knows which one he was. And he – he didn't have to look into the future, and s-see all the months and years ahead of him and know that every single one would be a struggle and the pain would never ever go away. He didn't get the time to be afraid of all that. He just – died." He half-turned to face them again. "And I wish—"

He cut himself off, thankfully, but it was already too late because they all knew how that sentence finished.

Charlie wanted to say something, say anything at all that could make it better. Something like _We love you _or _It'll be alright _but the words all stuck in his throat. He met Bill's eyes, which were stricken. Percy went as far as to half-rise from his chair, turning towards George before shaking his head and sitting down again.

George had closed his eyes again, leaning his forehead against the window. Ron was still sitting stiffly on the rug, his hand resting on the handle of his wand, his whole body alive with tension. And Ginny had finished her third drink and was pouring herself a fourth from Charlie's nearly-empty bottle.

Charlie looked around the room, at his siblings breathing once more in that steady, all-pervading silence. At the younger three, so scarred by wars and rebellion and loss; at the older three, so helpless to do anything for them; most of all at the gaping hole that divided them.

They stayed that way until the sunrise.


End file.
